Month: November 2016

Everyone who knows me, knows I absolutely love oats in every shape and form! This may be in a smoothie, in cookies, in muffins, everywhere! So before writing this post, I decided I wanted to give some information about oats and why it is good for you. First thing, did you know oats’ other name is Avena Sativa. There is your piece of useless info for the day! 😜

Oats info:

We all know oats has many health benefits, such as anti-cancer properties, it helps with blood sugar and blood pressure, etc. I am not here to talk about that, even though it’s also super important! I’m here to talk about the gut health today!

So oats has insoluble fibres in them. What does this mean?? 😨 It’s not that complicated, I promise! Insoluble fibres basically helps you to not be constipated. It doesn’t dissolve in water, which means the juices are absorbed and then it makes the stool heavier and then increases the pace of their passage. (Gross talk over now). Also it helps keep you fuller for longer! Win-win!

Oats also provide you with lots of vitamins and minerals. These include Manganese, Phosphorus, Copper, Vitamin B1, Iron, Selenium, Magnesium & Zinc. Point is, Oats is very, very good for you!

So this recipe is definitely my favourite, if I do have time in the morning I usually make this! You can add anything in this recipe according to how you feel and even add some fruit to it!

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Oats

1 Tbsp Greek Yoghurt

30g Protein Powder (I used Chocolate Flavour)

Dash of Cinnamon

300 ml Water

1 Tbsp Peanut Butter

Milk optional (Just reduce the amount of water then)

Cocoa powder optional (but it taste really good!)

Method:

Bring 300 ml water to boil.

Add oats and let it simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently until the water have soaked in.

Add greek yoghurt, protein powder and cinnamon.

Cook until you are happy with the consistency. (As you can see I like my oats a little bit runny)

Top with peanut butter, fruits, chocolate or anything you feel like having.

So I contacted the beautiful Gracefituk and asked if I could review one of her recipes. First of all, she is the sweetest girl! She always gives amazing tips and is super friendly. And then of course, she has the hottest bum in all the land! 🍑

When I heard she had 2 recipe books (sweet and savoury) I just had to have them! I bought them immediately and had to try all of the amazing recipes! The first recipe I tried was a Protein Porridge recipe which was just to die for! I’ve been making this almost every morning, using different toppings to give it variety. Point is – go buy her books! They are amazing, user friendly and provide some delicious recipes!

The most difficult thing was choosing which recipe I wanted to review. I literally chose four, then made two of them. You can never have enough sweet things in the house! I decided on reviewing the cookie dough recipe, because everyone loves cookie dough! I also wanted to try something new with things that I already have in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

240g Chickpeas (soaked and drained)

4 Tbsp Peanut Butter (I used Yum Yum Crunchy Peanut Butter)

2 Tbsp Honey

3 Tbsp Oats

Filling:

Cocoa Nibs

Dried Cranberries (or any other dried fruit)

Directions:

Add all ingredients and blend thoroughly

2. Place mixture in bowl and add the filling

3. Knead the cookie dough, roll into balls and place it in the fridge

Easy as pie? Maybe not. I do not have the best blender so I really struggled to blend all my ingredients thoroughly. So my biggest tip would be to use a nice blender!😂 I cannot wait to snack on these all week long! Thanks Grace for the amazing recipes!

Everyone has their own opinion about cardio. Some feel it will take away their muscle, others do it for fat loss. I feel that cardio is very important. Cardio gets your heart rate up in order to burn some fat. You will burn fat during cardio exercises as cardio increases your metabolism and will improve your body’s ability to recover faster. I love just talking a walk on the treadmill after my weights sessions. It’s a nice cool down and also relaxes my muscles a bit.

So as you may know, you get different types of cardio. I divide mine into 2 groups: LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I usually do LISS on the days I am a little more tired or drained from work. I’ll do HIIT when I am short on time and need to fit in a quick workout. Sometimes, if I have a lot of time, I do both LISS and HIIT in one workout. Below are some things I do at the gym:

LISS:

Walking on the treadmill

Yes, it sounds easy, but you work up quite a sweat! I do a warm up of just walking for about 3 minutes, then I set the incline up to the highest level (on the treadmill I use it is on 15), then I up the pace a bit to about 5.5 km/h to 6km/h. I walk like this for about 45 minutes to an hour, trying not to hold on to the bars. If I do feel like I need a break, I hold onto the bars for about 30 seconds and take a sip of water.

2. Cycling

I used to hate cycling until my boyfriend took me to a spinning class. Now I absolutely love it! The spinning classes at our gym is a bit late in the morning, so I only go on Saturdays. If I do feel like cycling though, I still do it! Find a nice fast pace that you feel like you would be able to keep up for about 30 minutes and adjust the resistance accordingly. I usually do this for about 30 to 45 minutes and try to keep my heart rate above 160. This is such a good fat burner and it tones your legs. It’s a win-win situation!

HIIT:

Running

I love doing this if I don’t have a lot of time. I walk for about 2 minutes as a warm up, then start running. I start with 8 km/h and every 30 seconds I go up with 0.5 km/h until I feel like I am running at a good pace (about 11.5 km/h). I run for 30 seconds and just step off the treadmill for 15 seconds. (Hence “interval” in HIIT). I do this for about 20 – 30 minutes. As a cool down I walk for about 5 minutes.

2. Cycling

As mentioned before, cycling is my favorite thing now. On the bicycle at the gym, there is an interval option. The warm up is about 2 minutes long at a resistance of 2. (I try to cycle as fast as I can during the whole workout) After 2 minutes, the resistance increases to about 8 for a minute and a half. Then another minute of the resistance at 2. After about 5 sets of these (depends on how long I am cycling) the resistance that went up to 8, goes up to 10 now, so you have to work a lot harder! This lasts for about 3 sets. I love those last 3 sets as I can feel my heart rate going up even more. This also motivates me to push harder as I know I am almost done with my workout!

3. Rowing

Rowing works with the same concept as mentioned above. I usually only row for about 15 minutes. I have a 2 minute warm up, and then for 30 seconds I row as fast as I can and 30 seconds rowing a little slower. Cool down for another 2 minutes.

In conclusion, there are so many ways of doing cardio. Other examples include jumping rope in intervals or tabata exercises. If you are interested in doing tabata workouts, you can literally just type it into Google, you will find so many ideas, pictures and explanations of what it actually is!

Also I just want to mention, I listen to my body. If I don’t feel like running today, I am not going to push myself into doing it. I do what I feel like on the day, sometimes I walk for 5 minutes on the treadmill and realise that I don’t want to be on it, so I move on onto something else. There’s no point in forcing yourself to do something that you won’t enjoy. Do what makes you happy 🙂

Gosh, I love oats. I would have oats for breakfast like literally every morning! Oats are just so healthy and you can do basically anything with it. So we all know that oats are like super healthy, but here are the real benefits of oats:

Oats are loaded with vitamins, minerals as well as antioxidant plant compounds.

It contains a powerful soluble fibre (Beta-Glucan)

Oats can lower cholesterol levels

It can improve blood sugar levels

It’s super filling!

Oats can relieve constipation (all that fibre!)

The only problem for me was it takes a while to cook, and me always being late for work, I just don’t have the time to cook the oats! So when I heard about overnight oats, I just had to try it! I read up about it on the internet and made my own recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup oats

Milk of choice to cover the oats

1 serving of whey protein

1 tsp cocoa powder

Fruit (I like to use dried cranberries or raisins, you can even top the oats with more fruit, such as banana or strawberries)

1 tsp peanut butter

1 tsp desiccated coconut

Method:

Mix everything, put in fridge overnight and enjoy the next morning, either microwaved or cold. I like to add my peanut butter the next morning and heat it in the microwave so it melts everywhere! 😍